— The Echo That Wore a Human Face
The forest ended.
Not gradually—
as if sliced clean by a blade that didn't exist.
Vaen stepped out from the skeletal trees onto an expanse of quiet plains. Grass that should've rustled remained still. Flowers that should've swayed stood frozen as though afraid to draw attention.
Nothing moved.
Nothing dared.
The world had begun to understand what walked upon it.
Vaen did not slow his pace. The faint pulse that had dragged him here—the same pulse that had whispered promises of something long forgotten—was stronger now. Almost clear. Almost calling.
Almost… remembering him.
He stopped.
A figure stood ahead.
A boy.
Small, barefoot, wearing a simple grey tunic. Black hair. Pale face. Wide, dull eyes that stared at Vaen without blinking—as if crafted to imitate a child, but missing something human.
No heartbeat.
No warmth.
No fear.
Just stillness.
Vaen's gaze sharpened for the first time in hours.
The boy smiled, thin and unnatural.
A smile that was copied, not felt.
"Hello," the child said, though his mouth didn't move.
The voice echoed directly inside Vaen's mind, layered with countless tones—as if millions attempted to speak at once through a single fragile shell.
Vaen remained silent.
The boy took one step forward. The ground didn't react—no imprint, no sound, no disturbance.
"You erased the Keeper," the echo-child said. "That is… unexpected."
The air thickened.
Not hostile.
Not welcoming.
Curious.
"You shouldn't be able to—"
The child tilted his head.
"—exist."
Vaen stared at him, expression blank. "Move."
The child blinked.
Once.
Time hiccuped—just for a moment.
Long enough to prove the boy wasn't real. Not a god. Not a mortal.
Something in between.
Or something completely outside.
The echo-child gave a slow, eerie smile.
"You speak like him."
Vaen's eyes narrowed. "Him?"
The smile widened—too wide.
"The one before you."
The plains trembled slightly.
Vaen said nothing, but inside him, a memory flickered.
A hand reaching for him.
A voice laughing in arrogance.
A betrayal so profound it fractured reality.
His past life.
The strongest man.
The feared cultivator.
The monster gods once knelt before.
Him.
The child's head twitched unnaturally. "He too believed he could survive the fate woven by the heavens. He too rebelled. He too destroyed the threads that bind this world."
The echo paused.
"And he died."
An emotionless statement.
A mechanical truth.
Vaen looked at the boy carefully.
"Are you trying to warn me?" he asked.
"No," the echo said.
It smiled again, slowly, painfully stretching its face.
"I'm trying to understand you."
The plains darkened at the edges. Not due to nightfall—because reality pulled away from the child, as if refusing to stand too close to what he was.
"I am not a god," the boy whispered with a thousand-throated voice.
"I am not mortal."
"I am not alive."
"I am not dead."
"I… am what remains when fate tries to rewrite itself."
The child placed a hand on his own chest.
"A copy."
Vaen raised an eyebrow.
"Of who?"
The echo smiled.
"Of you."
Silence.
Not the peaceful kind.
The kind that descends before an entire era collapses.
Vaen didn't move.
Didn't speak.
Didn't even blink.
The boy's form flickered—his voice distorting.
"You should not be awake yet. You were meant to die before you lived. That was the bargain. That was the correction. But something went wrong. You broke the cycle. You broke the rewrite."
Reality began to peel around the echo.
Like a page being torn from a manuscript.
The boy reached toward Vaen—hesitant, almost fearful.
"I came to see it for myself. Whether the stories were true. Whether the origin… truly returned."
Vaen stepped forward slowly.
The ground trembled beneath him.
The boy flinched.
"What are you afraid of?" Vaen asked.
The child's voice cracked.
"You."
The world shuddered as the boy took a stumbling step back.
"You were erased from existence. Erased from every memory. Erased from time. The gods removed your name from creation. And yet—"
The boy's eyes widened, terrified.
"—you returned. In a form they cannot see. In a place they cannot reach. With power they cannot comprehend."
The echo-child began to dissolve. His body split into strands of light, scattering like dying fireflies.
Before he disappeared entirely, he whispered one last thing.
A secret.
A warning.
A prophecy.
"The gods did not fear the man you once were."
Light cracked. The child shattered.
"They feared the you that existed before even them."
Vaen stood alone on the plains again.
The last gleam of the echo faded into nothing.
The wind returned—hesitant, trembling—like a servant creeping back into a room where its master had grown quiet.
Vaen closed his fist slowly.
"The one before me… died?"
He did not sound concerned.
Or shocked.
Or moved.
He sounded thoughtful.
As if evaluating a puzzle piece clicking into place.
The sky trembled above him.
Somewhere far away, in a palace of impossible light, a god awoke from meditation—drenched in sweat.
Something terrible was walking the worlds.
And for the first time in eons…
they felt fear.
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